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Rohingya women near a refugee
camp in
Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in November.
Credit Mohammad Ponir
Hossain/Reuters
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Myanmar’s Shameful Denial
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Last month, President Obama lifted sanctions against Myanmar,
citing “substantial progress in improving human rights” following the historic
election victory of the Nobel laureate Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party in November 2015.
Tragically, that praise is proving premature.
Hopes that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi
would bring an end to the brutal repression of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority,
lie dashed by a military campaign against the Rohingya in Rakhine State that
began after an attack on a police station on Oct. 9. Since then, some 34,000
people have fled over the border to Bangladesh amid allegations of murder and
rape by military forces, and satellite images of burned villages. At least 86
people have been killed.
Yet, a commission appointed by
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi concluded last week that “there were no cases of genocide
and religious persecution in the region.” Human rights groups rightly accuse
the commission of a whitewash. In an effort to muzzle reporting, Myanmar’s
government has barred independent journalists from the region, and dismissed
reports of abuses as “fake news” and “fake rape.”
After a disturbing video of
police brutally beating Rohingya villagers in November surfaced in late
December, the government said “legal action was being taken.” But, as Assistant
Secretary of State Tom Malinowski observed, the video suggests such abuses are
“normal and allowed.”
Meanwhile, the International
Crisis Group reports a new militant Rohingya
organization with ties to individuals in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan was
behind an Oct. 9 attack. The group warns that failure by Myanmar to address
longstanding grievances by the Rohingya and the indiscriminate military
crackdown in Rakhine State risk “generating a spiral of violence.” This is the
last thing Myanmar needs.
As the United Nations’ human
rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said last month, Myanmar’s approach to the
crisis is “shortsighted, counterproductive and even callous.” On Monday, the
United Nations human rights envoy for Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, arrived in the
country on a 12-day visit. She will present a report to the United Nations
Human Rights Commission in March. Given the failure of Myanmar’s own commission
to conduct a credible investigation, Ms. Lee should call for an independent
investigation conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.
Last April, the European Union
renewed remaining sanctions on Myanmar on “arms and goods that might be used
for internal repression” for one year. The union should renew those sanctions
if the government of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi fails to end abuses against the
Rohingya. That failure would also warrant new sanctions from the United States.